Apple has begun teasing its customers with Black Friday savings.
The company, which didn’t offer Black Friday deals in 2015, opted to allow third-party retailers such as Best Buy and Target to offer deals instead.
This year, Apple posted the following:
Our one-day shopping event will be here before you know it. Come back this Friday to check off everyone on your list.
The first of the Touch Bar-equpped MacBook Pro units look as if they’re about to ship on Friday, November 11th.
A number of users have reported that Apple has started changing the status of several preorders from “processing” to “preparing for shipment”, which typically happens in the days before it ships and delivers orders to customers.
Reports from the first preorder customers estimated a ship date of November 11th, while others were quickly notified that their orders had been pushed back 2-3 weeks to 4-5 weeks after the units became available via the Apple online storefront.
Following up on the large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Friday that temporarily took down large chunks of the Internet, it looks like Apple’s controversial “walled garden” approach to its HomeKit devices may have worked out.
As detailed in recent reports, the attack, which also targeted unprotected “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices, focused on Dyn, an internet management company that provides DNS services to many major web entities.
A series of repeated attacks caused websites including The Verge, Imgur and Reddit, as well as services like HBO Now, and PayPal, to see slowdowns and extended downtimes. Follow-up waves played havoc with The New York Times, CNN, Netflix, Twitter and the PlayStation Network, among many others.
If you’re looking to snag a jet black iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus tomorrow, you might be out of luck already.
Apple has issued a statement citing that the iPhone 7 Plus, especially in its jet black color, would be in short supply for walk-in customers without a reservation.
The statement also indicates that Apple’s jet black iPhones and all iPhone 7 plus models in all colors have sold out completely in the initial online ordering period and that no inventory will be available.
Preordering an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus might be a little harder than it should be.
Last week, a number of customers looking to preorder the new handset via Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program encountered issues selecting the correct model because a lot of them were already sold out.
Apple is attempting to smooth this out, but the availability issue stemmed from Apple placing customers enrolled in the iPhone Upgrade Program in a different queue than the general preorders. These customers had to reserve their model directly from a local Apple store, which resulted in limited availability. Some customers in the iPhone Upgrade Program were unable to select their preferred model, carrier, color, or storage capacity. Others weren’t even able to enter the reservation system to begin with.